EVERY PHOTOGRAPHER has a dream shot. For Steve
Winter, that shot was a tiger’s face seen from below.
The challenge, says Winter—who has long covered
big cats and other wildlife for National Geographic—
was getting that perspective in a way that didn’t
end with his own face inside the animal’s mouth.
Enter this apparatus, a camera mounted on a four-
wheel, remote-controlled vehicle. The “camera car”
had been built by National Geographic engineers but
never used. Winter saw its potential to capture that
looking-upward view and asked if he could take it to
India for a project on tiger conservation.
In the field, the contraption didn’t last long. Though
male tigers “ran away” from it, Winter says, a curious
female batted it with her enormous paw. That probably
did the camera in—but not before it caught the shot
Winter was after. —CATHERINE ZUCKERM AN
TIGERS FROM A
DIFFERENT ANGLE
PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK THIESSEN
EXPLORE | ARTIFACT
If this female Bengal tiger
wasn’t spooked by the car,
she didn’t seem to relish its
presence either. She dealt
it a few blows with her paw.
Before he decided to steer
the camera away, Steve Winter
got the portrait and perspec-
tive he wanted in this frame
of the same female.
In Bandhavgarh National Park
in Madhya Pradesh, India, male
tigers ran from the camera
car, but this one paused long
enough to be photographed.
Steve Winter took this
custom-made camera car
on assignment to document
tigers in a new way.
IN ACTION
PHOTOS (TIGERS): STEVE WINTER